Ted Danson and Kristen Bell in The Good Place. Image courtesy of NBC.
Look did I like The Good Place? Yeah, kind of. I found it inoffensively enjoyable in the way that Better Off Ted or Dead To Me are. It falls into that broad category of TV Shows Made For Middle Class White People. But there’s nothing particularly challenging about it, or interesting. The show basically asks: What if I, a middle class white person, think I am just living my best life, but actually I am horrible? That’s a fine question to ask, and forcing a MCWP (and by the way, only intolerable middle class white people would drop such an acronym casually into everyday conversation) of questionable character to interrogate whether she really deserves the spoils of Heaven is an interesting hook, but it runs out of steam real fast. I like Mike Schur’s work (he makes an excellent beet farmer), but this one smacks of a mildly interesting idea turned into a middling show based on the power of its producer. And it shows.
Do I hate The Good Place? No. But I bet most of its fans own yoga mats.
